Spectral efficiency gains in multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) communication networks are significant for point-to-point links. However, the gains are limited in multi-user (transceiver) cellular networks. This is especially so in a downlink from a base station to a transceiver (mobile telephone) of a cellular network, which is also called a vector broadcast channel.
In conventional cellular networks, inter-cell, co-channel interference (CCI) is primarily handled by careful radio resource management techniques such as power control, frequency reuse, and assignments of spreading codes.
In recent years, a number of more advanced techniques that outperform conventional approaches have been described to reduce the effect of CCI in cellular MIMO networks. For example, multi-user detection (MUD) in mobile stations (MSs) offers considerable performance improvements, H. Dai, A. F. Molisch and H. V. Poor, “Downlink capacity of interference-limited MIMO networks with joint detection,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Communications, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 442-453, March 2004. However, MUD is prohibitively complex for most practical networks.
In conventional single-cell transmission networks, where the signal intended for only one MS is transmitted from only one associated base station (BS), joint pre-coding optimizations among coordinated BSs has been described, A. Pascual-Iserte, A. I. Perez-Neira and M. A. Lagunas, “An approach to optimum joint beamforming design in a MIMO-OFDM multi-user system,” European Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2004, no. 2, pp. 210-221, 4th Quarter, 2004; and C. Windpassinger, R. F. H. Fischer, T. Vencel and J. B. Huber, “Pre-coding in multiantenna and multi-user communications,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 1305-1316, July 2004.
However, very stringent dimension constraints severely limit the number of transceivers that can be handled by such networks. While joint pre-coding significantly increases the network complexity, its performance gains are limited. Dirty paper coding (DPC), when used for the joint transmission among all the cooperative base stations, can effectively eliminate the effect of CCI, A. F. Molisch, Wireless Communications, Wiley, 2005; A. Goldsmith, S. A. Jafar, N. Jindal and S. Vishwanath, “Capacity limits of MIMO channels,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 684-702, June 2003; and S. Shamai and B. M. Zaidel, “Enhancing the cellular downlink capacity via co-processing at the transmission end,” Proc. 2001 Spring IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., pp. 1745-1749, May 2001.
Tomlinson-Harashima pre-coding (THP), which yields results that are only slightly suboptimal, is another practical solution, A. Pascual-Iserte, A. I. Perez-Neira and M. A. Lagunas, “An approach to optimum joint beamforming design in a MIMO-OFDM multi-user system,” European Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2004, no. 2, pp. 210-221, 4th Quarter, 2004; and C. Windpassinger, R. F. H. Fischer, T. Vencel and J. B. Huber, “Pre-coding in multiantenna and multi-user communications,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Communication., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 1305-1316, July 2004.
However, both DPC and THP are nonlinear pre-coding techniques, and are prohibitively complicated for cooperative BS MIMO networks. Therefore, linear pre-coding at the transmitter among cooperative BSs is an attractive solution given its relatively lower complexity requirements at both the BSs and the MSs, S. Shamai and B. M. Zaidel, “Enhancing the cellular downlink capacity via co-processing at the transmission end,” Proc. 2001 Spring IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., pp. 1745-1749, May 2001; G. J. Foschini, H. Huang, K. Karakayali, R. A. Valenzuela and S. Venkatesan, “The value of coherent base station coordination,” Proc. 2005 Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS 05), The Johns Hopkins University, Mar. 16-18, 2005; P. W. Baier, M. Meurer, T. Weber and H. Troeger, “Joint transmission (JT), an alternative rationale for the downlink of time division CDMA using multi-element transmit antennas,” Proc. 2000 IEEE 6th Int. Symp. Spread Spectrum Techniques, vol. 1, pp. 1-5, September. 2000; and B. L. Ng, J. S. Evans, S. V. Hanly and D. Aktas, “Transmit beamforming with cooperative base stations,” Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, ISIT 05, pp. 1431-1435, September 2005.
Joint transmission among cooperative base stations not only reduces CCI effectively, but also exploits macro-diversity, and can avoid capacity bottlenecks in channels with severe spatial correlations. However, conventional joint transmission schemes invariably assume that both the desired signals and the interfering signals from different BSs arrive at each of the MSs synchronously. While this assumption enables the well-studied single cell downlink transmission model to be applied in a straightforward manner, it is fundamentally unrealizable in practical networks.
The BSs can align their transmissions so that the signals intended for any MS arrive at that MS synchronously. However, the BSs cannot also simultaneously control when these signals are also received as interference by other MSs. Thus, the interference signals do not arrive simultaneously at the MSs, even under the assumption of accurate synchronous BS cooperation. The impact of this inherent asynchronism is readily apparent in high data rate networks. It can significantly degrade the performance of the networks. Even the multi-BS pre-coding optimization, in which a linearly pre-coded signal for an MS is transmitted by only one BS, ignores the asynchronous arrival of interference signals.
To the best of our knowledge, this problem of asynchronous interference in multi-user MIMO networks has not been addressed in the prior art.